Home-grown terrorism looms amidst terror war

But Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi was quick to point out last week that if the US is serious about its new-found policy, it should really start by bombing London — and perhaps Toronto.

Both cities are known to harbour a wide variety of terrorists and terrorist groups - ranging from the LTTE to Iraqi and Libyan opposition exile groups- who have long been permitted to freely raise funds for a rash of political causes and map out strategies to destabilise governments.

The terrorist attacks on the US on September 11, however, may change all that as an increasingly large number of Western nations, including the UK and Canada, are planning to crack down on these groups.

Belated, no doubt, but still a step forward in the global fight against terrorism. 

The new twist in the American war against terrorism, however, is that not all of the terrorists plotting against the US are from outside the country.

The wave of bioterrorism in the US— linked to the spread of the anthrax bacteria— may well be home-grown and the brainchild of rightwing political groups.

So far, the US has refused to explicitly blame outside groups, although these groups have not been ruled out.

A White House spokesman was quoted as saying that US officials had concluded that at least the anthrax found in a letter addressed to Senate majority leader Tom Daschle "could be produced by a PhD microbiologist in a sophisticated laboratory."

If that theory is proved right, it would certainly rule out some hole-in-the-wall laboratory in caves deep inside Afghanistan.

The threat of bioterrorism has also reinforced fears of a new brand of terrorism: nuclear terrorism.

Muhammad el-Baradei of Egypt, the Director-General of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), warned last week that the willingness of terrorists to commit suicide to achieve their "evil aims" makes the threat of nuclear terrorism far more credible than it was before September 11.

The IAEA has laid out three possible scenarios. The most devastating— but least likely— would be the use of a nuclear weapon by terrorists.

The Agency says that this would be unlikely because it would require advanced industrial facilities and scientific knowledge to manufacture such a weapon. 

Unlikely as it is, the IAEA does not rule out such a possibility.

A second scenario— and a more likely tactic— would be an attack on a nuclear facility prompting a release of radioactive material into the environment.

A third scenario is the possible use of a so-called "dirty bomb"— a weapon made of a combination of conventional explosives and radioactive sources.

On Friday, more than 400 experts gathered in Vienna for the IAEA's first special session on nuclear terrorism trying to figure out how to cope with the new threat.

Last month UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan gave advanced warning of possible bio-terrorist attacks when he urged member states to strengthen existing global treaties against the use or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

"The greatest immediate danger arises from a non-state group— or even an individual— acquiring and using a nuclear, biological or chemical weapon," he told the 189-member General Assembly.

Annan said the danger posed by weapons of mass destruction has been compounded by the fact that they can be deployed without the need for any missile or other sophisticated delivery systems. 

In 1995, the Aum Shinrikyo sect in Japan released a nerve gas called sarin in the Tokyo subway killing some 12 people and hospitalising over a thousand others.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he believes that "enemies of the United States" would eventually help terrorist groups to obtain weapons of mass destruction.

Annan told the General Assembly that it is hard to imagine how the tragedy of Sep. 11 could have been worse.

"Yet the truth is that a single attack involving nuclear or biological weapons could have killed millions."

While the world was unable to prevent the September 11 attacks, he said, "there is much we can do to help prevent future terrorist acts carried out with weapons of mass destruction."

Annan urged member states to redouble their efforts to ensure the universality, verification, full implementation of key treaties relating to weapons of mass destruction, including those outlawing chemical and biological weapons and the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). 

The NPT has been signed and ratified by 187 countries, including the United States. Only four countries— India, Pakistan, Israel and Cuba— have refused to sign or ratify it.